Which version of Sonic is the best version of Sonic?

From Sonic 1 to the Black Knight, which spiny avatar is best?

But it's not enough to just show you them all. The internet needs to know which is best. It's purely subjective opinion, of course, but we'll show you our least liked immediately over the page, followed by our favourites and the ultimate version of Sonic. Which will it be?

That's a lot of Sonics, huh? Some of them are great, others... well, let's have a look at the ones that went wrong...